Introduction to WHY WE CHARGE A “CONSULTATION FEE” WHEN OTHER LAWYERS MAY NOT

San Antonio Texas Real Estate Attorney Trey Wilson wrote:

Some prospective clients are surprised to hear that we charge a $350.00  “consultation fee” for a 1 hour in-person or telephonic discussion of whether we can and should undertake to represent them.  We know that many attorneys in San Antonio offer “free consultations.”  We do not – and for what we believe are very good reasons.

For the first several years of our firm's existence, we did not charge for consultations.  Resultantly, we gave away thousands of hours, and expended substantial resources visiting with hundreds of prospective clients who were “lawyer shopping,” “kicking tires,” or simply looking for free advice. 

We are blessed with dozens of potential new client calls each week, so consulting (for free) quickly became a full-time job. That business model was plainly unsustainable when we reached the point where we had to have non-lawyers conduct most of our initial consultations. I was never comfortable with this, especially since many of our real estate cases are highly complicated, involve challenging  factual scenarios, and have tremendous implications for the involved parties.

Just like any other business enterprise, a law firm’s clients are its lifeblood, and fresh blood is an essential component for sustaining. Nevertheless, we came to dread consulting with prospective clients because...well... there were just too many requests for our time.  We were so busy conducting free consultations that we fell behind in the work required to service our existing clients’ legal matters.  Even worse, it became obvious that lots of prospective clients had visited with us solely  to obtain free free advice, with no intention of ever retaining ANY lawyer's services.

So, in the year 2010, I decided to start charging a nominal consultation fee, and simultaneously enhanced the initial consultation/meeting with prospective clients into a valuable “strategy session,” as opposed to a generic interview.  This was a great business decision  – for us and for the people who  genuinely interested in obtaining the services of a serious, and hard-working real estate lawyer in San Antonio. 

There are 5 key reasons why we charge a $350.00 “consultation fee.”   In the coming days, we will list those reasons one-by-one.